Sailing yachts, especially high performance sailing yachts, are constructed for efficiency regarding the utilization of wind power, minimizing of water resistance or drag, and regarding their maneuverability and stability. There is room for improvement, however, of the respective characteristics of known sailing yachts.
A yacht is known from the cover page of the Thursday, July 7, 1988 issue of the British newspaper, The Times, showing a yacht essentially having a hull and a sail, with bow and stern keels. The bottom ends of the keels are provided with a buoyancy control fin. An outrigger is attached laterally to each side of the hull. The end of each outrigger carries a fin strut or wing strut projecting downwardly and carrying several buoyancy control fins. Said buoyancy control fins form a four-point wing or airfoil surface system for producing lift or rather buoyancy and for steering and stabilizing. The yacht is depicted in a high speed condition, whereby the hull and the outriggers are located above the surface of the water. The known yacht does not show any means for accelerating the transitional phase from the submerged state to the high speed state. As a result, at the start, when an adequate carrying or lifting capacity of the wing system has not yet been achieved, movement can be highly unstable. Furthermore, it is to be expected, from the depicted fin or wing configurations, that there are relatively high induced drag values. The wetted hull surface or underwater configuration of the hull does not appear to be minimized at all.